1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to equipment and process for upgrading oil to enable production of a lighter refined oil from a heavier material oil.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a trend toward lighter products in worldwide oil situations in recent years. So-called light oils (light hydrocarbon oils), such as a gasoline, a heating oil, and a gas oil, can be obtained not only by means of distillation of oil, such as atmospheric distillation and vacuum distillation, but also by cracking so-called heavy oils (heavy hydrocarbon oils). The process of obtaining a light oil from a heavy oil includes catalytic cracking by which a heavy oil is cracked using a catalyst, hydro-cracking by which a heavy oil is cracked using a catalyst in a hydrogen gas stream with the addition of hydrogen, thermal cracking by which a heavy oil is thermally cracked without using a catalyst, and so forth (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 07-011259 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 09-183983).
In addition to the need for a catalyst, catalytic cracking and hydro-cracking require regeneration processing of the catalyst because the catalyst becomes inactive with catalytic cracking of a heavy oil. Further, hydro-cracking requires strict production conditions at a temperature of 500° C. or above and a pressure of 30 to 100 atmospheres. Thermal cracking also requires strict production conditions at a temperature of 400° C. to 500° C. and a pressure of 2 to 30 atmospheres.